


Manu Ad Coxus

by admiralty



Series: Introspection [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Episode: s06e19 The Unnatural, Episode: s08e13 Per Manum, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 12:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16786801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/admiralty/pseuds/admiralty
Summary: Mulder POV after Scully asks him to father her child."This isn’t how this is supposed to happen, not for her. She shouldn’t be forced to awkwardly ask her best friend to do this with her. She should be comfortable. Comfortable asking the man she loves to do this with her. "





	Manu Ad Coxus

_She wants to have my baby._

That’s what Scully said, in so many words. “Mulder, be the father of my child, if you wouldn’t mind.” What does this mean? What does she even want it to mean? Does it mean anything, really?

She’s driving away from me in the FBI parking garage, wheels on pavement, squealing around corners. I really can’t quite process what’s just happened.

I know she wants to be a mother. It was refreshing when she told me about her infertility; rather than the typical “I’m fine, Mulder,” brush-off, she let me in. It’s only occurring to me now how serious she must have been about wanting children, to circle back on that terrible truth; to put herself through hearing that all over again.

If I’m being completely honest with myself, I’ve tried to forget the information I’d learned about her infertility. It was just one more thing I felt responsible for, one more thing I blame myself for.

But now it’s coming back into my life again, at the speed of light.

_“Mulder, I’m asking you to be the donor. If that’s something you’d… consider.”_

I’ve never really wanted children. It’s never really crossed my mind as a priority. Diana never wanted children either when we were together so it wasn’t something we discussed, and without a partner in the picture it’s not something I’d have come up with on my own.

But a strange sensation is coming over me right now as I stand alone in this parking garage, her presence fading away into the ether, her perfume lingering around my head: a real desire to have a baby with Scully. I can still hear her car exiting the garage and I already know I’m going to do this for her.

I would do anything for her.

I suspect she knows this about me. Why else would she have asked me to do this? Did she think ‘no’ would even enter my mind?

It’s unfathomable to imagine Scully giving birth to a child that isn’t half hers and half mine. More unfathomable than Big Blue, or a white whale.

More unfathomable than imagining her with some other man, any other man.

If I say no, who then would get to mix up their genetic material with hers? Some stranger chosen with the harsh touch of an index finger on the page of a repurposed trapper-keeper? Some menu of traits Scully would sit and leaf through, looking at face after face of men who would give her a baby but not a second of their time?

I slowly start to walk to my own car, deep in thought. My mind races to the future, images of Scully cradling a baby, smelling a baby, kissing a baby. I can’t see myself at all in these images. I’ve never imagined such a thing in my life. But I can see her, and she’s glowing. She’s happy. Thoughts of abductions and serial killers and conspiracies and cancer are far from her in this picture. It’s what I want for her, truly.

As for me? I don’t know. I don’t even know what she wants me to be. Just a donor? Or… a father?

A father. _Jesus_. I haven’t even had a chance to prove myself to Scully as a romantic partner, a lover. A boyfriend. A husband. Does she even want any of that with me? Could she? For fuck’s sake, I haven’t even kissed her. She’s off limits to me in that capacity, at least that’s where I feel like we are right now. Trusting me with her child seems like such a leap.

What if she asks me to help her raise this child? Can I do that? Am I even capable? Why would she want someone with as fucked up a family history as mine to help her do this? No one would ask me. _I_ wouldn't ask me.

But _she_ did.

I’m not trying to talk myself out of doing this. Regardless of what our future holds, she needs me right now. And I would never deny her anything. I just want to curse the gods for putting us in this situation in the first place. This isn’t how this is supposed to happen, not for her. She shouldn’t be forced to awkwardly ask her best friend to do this with her. She should be comfortable. Comfortable asking the man she loves to do this with her.

Whomever that may be.

Have I gotten in the way of that? Is she asking me because she has no other choice? Or could she conceivably be asking me because she loves me? It’s gotten me thinking, really thinking about the possibility I could be that man for her.

I do know I love her. More than anything. I’m going to tell her again, you know, eventually. It didn’t really _take_ the first time. Time travel, luxury liners, morphine, hospital beds. She didn’t believe me then. But now, when I do tell her… will she assume it’s just because I think it’s what she wants to hear? Because now we’re going to be having a baby together?

Suddenly I’m so frustrated I scream, loudly and piercingly in the cavern of this parking garage. I can’t tell her I love her now, she’d suspect an ulterior motive.

What do I do? _What do I do?_

A couple agents walking to their cars hear me and glance in my direction.

“Sorry,” I say, lifting my hand in acknowledgment. Heads shake, eyes roll. Crazy Spooky Mulder again.

 _Where the fuck is my car?_ I can’t remember where I parked. I honestly can’t remember. I don’t think I’m in a state of mind to drive even if I could find it.

Fuck it. I pull my coat up around my neck and walk. I walk and walk and walk. My feet carry me out onto the sidewalk and past the Freedom Plaza. Past the White House. I don’t realize it but my feet are taking me straight to Scully’s apartment.

***

I approach her door and take a deep breath. It took more than an hour to walk here and I’m tired but I feel more determined than ever. If there’s a thing in my power, something that I, Fox Mulder, can do to make Scully happy, I will do it. Never a question.

I knock and she lets me in. I have no idea why but I’m grinning like an idiot. Her apartment is so warm and cozy, and… well, Scully. I wish I could be inside it more often. Picture frames perfectly straight, candles that smell of the ocean, thick impenetrable walls.

 _Scully_.

“Can I take your coat?” she asks.

She wants me to stay. She doesn’t even know what my answer is and she wants me here. I’ve never wanted to stay more than I do right now but I have to go back to get my car.

“I can’t stay, I gotta get back to the office for a while.”

“Obviously you’ve had some time to think about my request,” she says haltingly. She sounds all business, which she thinks is some kind of cover but I know her. She does this when things are hard.

She won’t meet my eyes. I’m pretty sure she assumes I’m going to decline politely, then we’ll just go back to work tomorrow without ever talking about this again. Without ever acknowledging the fact that she wants to make a baby that’s half mine.

“It’s not something I get asked to do every day,” I grin. She still won’t look at me. I can tell dragging this out is driving her insane. “But I am absolutely flattered.”

Her face falls and part of me feels bad she’s misinterpreting what I’m saying but I have to get this out. It’s irresponsible not to.

“Look, if you’re trying to politely say ‘no,’ it’s okay, I understand,” she says quickly. She looks so disappointed and I know, I _know_ she predicted the wrong outcome. She’s probably been preparing for it since she left that parking garage. The thought of her toiling over this, questioning my devotion to her, even for only a couple of hours, makes my insides ache.

I want to end her suffering but I need to make clear before I answer that whatever happens, we’re in this together. This… _thing_ … we’ll be doing together, it’s not going to get in the way of _us._ It’s important I say this, for the both of us. Introducing a third party into this dynamic I love isn’t something I ever considered.

“See, what’s weird is… and this sounds really weird, I know, but... I just wouldn’t want this to come between us.”

She doesn’t realize it, I’m sure, but if I said no to her it _would_ come between us. There would be a child in our lives, some Tom or Dick or Harry’s child, that I would look at every day and know in my soul I made a huge mistake. Because I would never leave her, ever. And on some deep, forbidden plane neither of us have the courage to explore she _has_ to know this much. This has to be the reason she asked me in the first place.

“Yeah, I know. I understand, I do.” Her face falls again and it occurs to me that my words have come out wrong, probably, as usual. She doesn’t understand, not really, and it isn’t her fault. It’s mine because I don’t say what I’m really thinking. I don’t say _Scully, I could never, ever say no to you. Because I’m in love with you. You have to know this._

She still won’t look up at me so I reach out to touch her chin and her eyes finally meet mine. I can’t let her think I’m letting her down, I hate seeing that face.

“But… the answer is yes,” I say. I smile so she doesn’t misunderstand. About a dozen emotions cross her face and I wait, I wait until the one she lands on is happiness. It’s all I ever want to see.

She doesn’t say anything, because we suck at this. She only steps close and wraps her arms around me. I can’t recall her hugging me this tightly in a long time and I can fully comprehend what this means to her. She finally pulls back and looks up at me, and it’s as good as done in my head: we’re going to have a baby. Me and Scully.

 _Wow_.

“Well, I’ll call Dr. Parenti and… I assume he’ll want to meet you and go through the... donor procedure.”

Oh, right. I need to go jerk off in a cup first.

“At that part, I’m a pro,” I smirk. She laughs at my joke but I can tell her mind is elsewhere, thinking of babies and diapers and laughter and warm downy heads and powdery smells and all the nice, normal things she deserves to have.

I smile at her one last time and duck out of her apartment. A few steps down the hall and I can’t get the image of how happy she was out of my head. I know what a long shot this is. I know we’re only part of the way there. But I can’t think about that right now. All I can think about is the fact that we’ve declared our intent to be bound together for life. Scully might think having this child is some kind of validation for her, or even for our relationship. But the truth is, her act of simply asking me is validation of _me._ She wants me in her life forever.

We are going to be parents.

I run back and knock again, and she opens the door, surprised.

“I just want to tell you something, Scully,” I say. “It probably feels like this is going to be an uphill battle but I’m going to be there with you every step of the way, okay?”

It’s all I can say to her without saying what I really mean. Which is that I’d be by her side regardless of potential babies. I’m in this with her forever. Whenever she tolerates my presence for a mere second I hang onto that scrap of time like my life depends upon it.

She nods and smiles again, and this time I go to her. I pull her tiny body into mine, her head nestled underneath my chin, breathing in the scent of her shampoo just quietly enough that she won’t hear me and think I’m a creep for doing it.

“This is gonna work, Scully, I know it,” I say quietly as she clutches my coat. “Imagine a miracle and you’re halfway there.”

***

At the first doctor visit I shake hands with Dr. Parenti, who makes a comment about my appearance which I can only interpret as a come-on of some kind. I’m already a little weirded out by the guy but I don’t want to upset Scully so I keep my mouth shut. 

Scully nervously taps her thighs as the weight of this entire operation presumably settles upon her, its veracity further illustrated by the pregnant women filtering in and out of the office. I take her hand in mine and hold it in my lap, feeling her immediately calm.

A nurse calls my name and I give Scully a last look and a last squeeze of her hand. The nurse shuffles me into a tiny room quickly and closes the door. Men don’t matter much in this office, just their sperm. There are a few magazines and tapes for those in need of assistance but I wasn’t kidding when I told her I was a pro. I unbuckle my belt and stick my hand, still warm from hers, inside my jeans. I grip myself and think of Scully.

Afterwards, flushed and sweaty, I look down into the cup. Suddenly this doesn’t feel like enough, and yet it’s the biggest thing I can give her. Genetic material. Life. Essence. I imagine it co-mingling with her own, making a new person, some completely unique entity. Someone half Mulder, half Scully. It makes me smile.

I would give her all of me if I could. Would she take it? I would give her the moon if I could only reach it. Pluck it out of the inky atmosphere, that vast expanse of nothing, of everything. Present it to her like an offering for the goddess she is.

“That was quick,” she says after I exit, that perfectly manicured eyebrow leaping skyward.

“Don’t read anything into it,” I say before I can stop myself. I’m not even sure why I said it; if I were ever lucky enough to get inside Scully I’m sure I’d be spent faster than my clip at the shooting range.

On the second visit Dr Parenti appears not to recognize me, and I idly wonder if he’s a clone or a pod person or even some kind of alien replicant. I turn to Scully to make a joke but think better of it. I ask if she wants me in the room with her for the implantation procedure but she declines, probably to spare me from awkwardness more than anything else. I would go anywhere she needed me but I also know she can handle herself. She tells me staying in the waiting room is fine. I do what she asks.

“Two weeks,” she says as we exit the office. I help her with her coat and before she can protest I grab her hand, squeezing it gently, pretending we’re just a normal couple doing something perfectly normal. She shouldn’t feel awkward about something so wonderful. She deserves better than what she’s having to go through.

“Then we’ll know?”

She nods, and as we walk to the car she again has that distant look on her face which means she’s dreaming about a future that has not yet solidified. Before I unlock the car doors we stop and regard each other. I don’t know what possesses me, maybe it’s sentimentality, or maybe it’s just this uncontainable love I have for her finding itself more and more difficult to hide, but my hand hovers over her abdomen, not touching her, but looking right at her, seeking permission. I touch her cheek softly with my other hand and my thumb grazes her temple. Without hesitation she takes my hand and pulls it to her, holding it against her stomach, closing her eyes.

We stand in silence and hope.

My fear is real, the fear this may not work, the fear of disappointing her again. Mostly the fear of seeing that look on her face I never want to see. I want to tell her to be careful with her hopes and dreams, that hope is not a fact, not yet. But I don’t.

I want her to be happy. It’s all I want for her.

***

A couple days later we’re in the basement office again on a weekend. I tell her she should be resting but she insists her doctor told her to resume her normal activity. I tell her schlepping huge reference books from the FBI archives isn’t exactly normal activity but she “shut up Mulder”s me and does it anyway. She just wants to be near me and this delightful fact is not lost on me.

Box scores, vending machines, Tofutti Rice Dreamsicles. I don’t want to taste that nonsense, I want to taste Scully. I think if my hints were any more obvious at this point I’d have to literally throw her down onto the desk to get her to understand I’m ready for this, ready for her. All I can gather is that she is not ready for me. So I wait.

Later that night I wrap my arms around her from behind and smell her hair, which is heaven, if I believed in such a place. It would be right here, holding Scully, thwacking baseballs into the cool night air. All of my favorite things. Throw in a UFO and I’d be crying with joy.

She laughs and flirts and these moments are all I’m living for. I’m living for her smile, and for the tiny life hopefully forming beneath my fingers as I sell “hips before hands” as a legitimate swing technique, rather than just an excuse to touch her. I joke about her biological clock because of this secret we share, that she’s far from hopeless in that regard at the moment. I’m overcome with hope myself and can’t imagine we’ve ever been happier together.

We duck into a diner afterwards, neither wanting the evening to come to an end. I order a coffee, Scully a decaf. This baby hasn’t left her mind for a second and I’m cognizant of that fact. I brush the hair out of her eyes and cover her hand with mine on the counter. She thanks me for the baseball lesson and touches my forearm and rubs her foot against my calf under the counter. She leans into my shoulder and we just sit in comfortable silence.

I mark and remember every touch, every new thing she tries, every new thing I try that she’s receptive to. I can feel us changing, slowly, but as surely as time moves forward in an endless line, racing towards the unknown.

***

For the next several days we live in hope, feeding off it and each other, keeping this dream alive. She invites me over to her apartment, her sacred Scully space, and I accept, night after night. We spend time together, real time.

The afternoon of her appointment she tells me she wants to go alone and that she’ll see me later. I stay at her place, quite comfortable here by now. I walk around, from room to room, imagining a baby in here. A baby would belong here, it would feel right. We’re so close, I think, _so close._ Not only to her dream, but perhaps to mine. Perhaps close to getting to a place where I can tell her what she means to me.

Hours pass and I start to feel sick to my stomach. The sun is going down and she should have called by now. I lay on the couch to wait and must fall asleep because the door opening wakes me up. I know instantly from her face the news is bad and I can feel everything crashing down around me, around her. Around _us_.

She hugs me so tightly I can physically feel her aching. I say something about miracles and not giving up, just words, words to make her feel better because all I want is to make her feel better. I feel as if there’s no hope anymore but I can’t let go of this dream now, the one I hadn’t considered two weeks ago that was so close to being a reality before being ripped away from us.

But Scully made it real in my head and my heart, just by saying words to me. Just by saying _Mulder, I want to do this with you._ Those words alone had the power to change us, to make it real.

Maybe my words can make this real for her. And if they don’t, maybe I can be enough someday.

She doesn’t let me leave and I sleep in her bed for the first time, wrapped around her, listening to her sob quietly. There’s nothing I can do. It’s the most gut wrenching thing I’ve ever gone through, and that’s saying something, for me.

“What’s the point?” she whispers suddenly. Her face is so close to mine, I’m hypersensitive to the fact that if she weren’t suffering I’d never be allowed to be so close to her and I feel momentarily guilty for this self-indulgence.

“The point of what?” I ask.

“Hope,” she says. Hearing her spirit so broken makes my heart hurt. I don’t know how to respond to that so I lay still. She’s quiet for so long I don’t want to leave it there.

“I guess… it’s the only thing that keeps us going. Hope for something better, something that could be just around the corner.” I haven’t really thought too deeply about it before but it rings true. “Without hope, there’s no point to anything, when you think about it.”

She pulls my hand close to her mouth and drags it over her lips, not really kissing but just making contact. For a moment I wonder if she’s making a sexual overture but I banish these thoughts, which feel highly inappropriate in this context. This isn’t the time or the place for us to take such a step. She just wants contact, just touch. She wants to feel something, anything.

“Thank you,” she says into my hand.

“For what?” I reply, opting not to remind her this endeavor didn’t even work.

“For being here. Not just now, but all the time. When I need you.” She sniffs a little and it sounds like she’s finally stopped crying.

“Anytime, Scully.”

Maybe she won’t get her miracle baby. Maybe we won’t get to be parents together after all. But in the end, what we have is each other. This thing she and I share together; well, isn’t that a miracle too?

I hold her close, the words “I love you” screaming to get out, again. But I keep them in this time. Just once I’d like things to be normal for us, and happy. Not laced with grief or pain or terror. Our lives may never be that way, not for good at least, but those tiny moments… the ones where we’re hitting baseballs, where we’re drinking coffee and our fingers touch. The moments where nothing is holding us back; I will keep waiting for those.

We’ll keep living for those.

**Author's Note:**

> (Manu Ad Coxas translates to "hips before hands.")
> 
> Thanks for reading, feedback is always appreciated! :)


End file.
